Blood Counts

by Martin O'Brien

  He had noticed the disposable cameras in a basket in the Blanchards’ kitchen when he and Brunet had visited the parents to break the news of their daughter’s death, and remembered them from the dining tables set out in the meadow the day before. At a decent and respectful hour on Monday morning he had sent Brunet back to the farmhouse to request a full list of wedding guests – those who had attended and those who had not – and to ask also if he could take away the table cameras so that their film could be developed in order to help with the investigation. According to Brunet, Madame Blanchard had a list of names and addresses in a kitchen drawer and seemed only too happy to surrender the cameras – looking at them as if she couldn’t quite work out what they were, or their significance, and only too happy when she finally realised what they were to be rid of them.

  Putting aside the dossiers from Pathology and Forensics, Jacquot reached for the first of the cellophane wraps, opened it and counted the film wallets it contained. Six of them, with up to twenty photos in each. In all, approximately seven hundred pictures to check through.

  Every face to be identified.

  Every person interviewed.

  Every name crossed off the list.

  Until there were none left.

  Police work. Building the wall, stone by stone. It had to be done.

  And maybe someone, along the way, would provide them with a lead, or another avenue of investigation would open up the search and redirect their efforts.

  By six o’clock that evening, on a trestle table in the squad room, a little over seven hundred colour photos had been sorted into three main groups: close-ups (including bride and groom), group shots (usually à table), and general views of the reception – the Blanchards’ farmhouse, the meadow, the queues at the hog-roast, the dancing – with anything up to thirty people in frame: back views, side views, in focus and out of focus, taken in daylight, and at night, using the flash. Among them was a photo of Jacquot leaning back in his chair with a pair of bare legs in his lap and a mischievous look on his face. There was also a stack of black-and-white contact sheets which the official wedding photographer had brought in the previous evening. Each of these images would be numbered, pored over with a magnifying glass, and frequently blown up for ease of identification.

  In the absence of anything else to go on, it was the only place to start: a pile of photographs which, in the days that followed, as the investigating team visited and interviewed the people in the photos or taken from the Blanchards’ invitation list, steadily increased in size as more prints were produced by wedding guests with their own cameras, all carried back to police headquarters in Cavaillon for checking and cross-referencing – snaps taken at the church, during the procession through St-Florent to the farmhouse, and at the reception that followed – until every single person captured on film had been accounted for.

  It took a little over two weeks.

  Until only three photos remained.

  9

  ‘THERE, THERE, AND . . . THERE.’

  One by one, Brunet laid the three photographs on Jacquot’s desk. Each of them was a 15×18cm enlargement in grainy black and white, the office lights shining off their glossy surfaces: the bride and groom making their way out of Église St-Florent amid a rain of rice; walking down the main street at the head of the wedding procession; and a wide-angle shot taken at the gates to the Blanchards’ farm.

  Jacquot picked up the first photo and peered at a red-circled head at the back of a crowd of villagers gathered on a bank of grass outside the church. The figure seemed somehow isolated, alone, standing apart from the main action yet observing it all the same. But even enlarged the person was too far away to make out any expression or even the most basic features.

  Man or woman? Old or young? Impossible to say.

  The second photo was of St-Florent’s main street, no more than a village road with a boulangerie and small bar-café amid the cluster of houses, no cars visible as Noël and Izzy, hand in hand, headed towards the family farmhouse with their friends and family following. And there was another red ring, a face in the crowd watching the procession. Wearing what looked like a scarf or hat. Or maybe it was just a shadow.

  ‘The same person? What do you think?’ asked Jacquot.

  ‘These two photos, maybe,’ replied Brunet, leaning over Jacquot’s shoulder to point. ‘But the last picture’s a little clearer.’

  This time the circled head and shoulders were closer, a little more in focus. Standing by the gates to the farm as the procession flowed through. Clearly not invited to the hog-roast reception.

  Jacquot looked at the first two pictures again. A definite similarity. Possibly a hat or scarf covering the head. The same person.

  ‘Looks like just one person, doesn’t it?’ asked Brunet with a sly smile.

  ‘That’s what it looks like, but now you’re going to tell me differently.’

  ‘Pick up the first picture, at the church, and the last picture, at the farm, and look at them together, side by side.’

  Jacquot did as instructed, angling the photos so the light didn’t flash off their surfaces, obscure the image.

  ‘There, you see? In the first picture, in the churchyard, the figure is either holding up a hand to shade their eyes or wearing a hat or scarf. And there, just below, between the two people in front, you can just see what looks like a belt buckle.’

  Jacquot peered at the image, and nodded.

  ‘But here, at the farmhouse gates, what appears to be the same person, also shading their eyes against the sun, is wearing trousers but with no buckle. And it also looks as if there’s a difference in height. Compared with the people around them. One tall, one short.’

  ‘So two different people . . .’

  ‘Could be three . . .’

  ‘And no one recognises them, no one remembers them, the people standing beside them?’

  Brunet shook his head.

  ‘Nobody we’ve spoken to.’

  ‘They could be tourists, just passing through St-Florent when the wedding happens? People do that . . . they stop and watch, join in.’

  ‘Of course, that is possible . . .’ Brunet let his words trail off.

  ‘But you don’t think so?’

  ‘No, I don’t, Boss. There’s something . . . just something not right about them. It’s as if they’re scouting things out, stalking the newly-weds.’

  ‘And you’re the one who thought that Gilbert had done it all by himself, set it all up?’

  ‘Back then, I did, yes, you’re right. But then I looked at this report from Forensics that just came in from Aix.’ With a flourish Brunet produced a file from behind his back, laid it on top of the photos and flicked it open. ‘The pillowcase from Le Mas Bleu, and Gilbert’s hair samples. According to our chemical friends down the road, there are traces of Dyethelaspurane still present in the cotton, and in the hair fibres. You were lucky to spot it. It has a swift evaporation rate when exposed to air, creates like a wave of . . .’

  ‘So they just dripped it onto his pillow. They didn’t even need to touch him?’

  ‘That’s how it looks.’

  ‘Tell me more about Dyethelaspurane.’

  ‘Soon as I got something to tell you, Boss.’

  10

  AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME that Brunet was showing Jacquot the three photos at police headquarters in Cavaillon, Madame Minette Peluze was parking her car outside her home in Marseilles’ tenth arrondissement, a few streets away from Boulevard de la Chapelle. On the seat beside and behind her were half a dozen carrier bags from the local supermarché, charcuterie and poissonnerie, her husband’s suit in a plastic wrap from the dry cleaner’s, and in the boot of the car a large cardboard box containing a dozen bottles of Bellet red and white – an expensive treat but her husband’s favourite. She would leave the wine for Claude to bring in, she decided; too heavy for a woman of her years to manage. She’d have him fetch it in when he got home from police headquarters.

  Struggl
ing up the steps to their house, Madame Peluze dropped the bags on the porch, searched for her key, unlocked the front door and pushed it open. Stooping down, she picked up her shopping and cleaning and stepped inside, kicking the door closed behind her. In the kitchen she hung her husband’s suit on a hook on the back of the door and set about unpacking the bags: sweets for the grandchildren, the makings of a cake, a box of cake candles, a six-pack of Orangina, and packets of crisps and crackers and biscuits for the following day’s birthday party – le petit Nicolas, five years old.

  After hiding away these goodies, Madame Peluze set about unpacking her other bags – olive oil, potatoes and a pot of tapenade; bread, butter and cheese; and, finally, a now sodden paper-wrapped parcel of monkfish and snapper, shrimps, squid and a rustling net of mussels, for a Marmite du Pêcheur. This fishermen’s stew was another favourite of her husband’s and would be the centrepiece of an anniversary dîner à deux served in her trusty old Staub casserole dish that very evening. Claude had promised to be home early, had made arrangements for one of the boys at headquarters on rue de l’Evêché to cover for him the following day. With the weekend upon them, if the gods blessed them, then she and her husband would have a whole four days together. Please, she prayed under her breath, don’t let anyone murder anyone else for the next few days.

  With her shopping unpacked and put away, Minette Peluze looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and decided that a little ‘something’ would be suitable reward for her morning’s exertions. She poured herself a small Pineau des Charentes on the rocks, lit a cigarette and sat back in a kitchen chair. Life, she thought, sipping the ice-cold apéritif and taking in a deep drag of the filtered Cool menthe, was good. And if Claude kept his promise and put in for retirement at the end of the summer, it would be better still. He was too old for it now; it needed a younger man, and he knew it. She took another sip of her Pineau and the chill sweetness puckered her cheeks. Another six months and he’d be free to hand in his badge and gun and be done with it all. Thirty years in the service; it was enough, surely?

  A second Pineau followed the first, with a second cigarette to accompany it. She went to the window above the sink and latched it open. She and her husband had given up cigarettes nearly a year before, but they each smoked privately, secretly, without the other knowing. So as not to offer temptation. It was a compelling theory. If he knows I’m smoking, thought Minette to herself, he’ll want to smoke – and vice versa – so they both smoked on their own, when the other wasn’t around. But no amount of cooking, Minette knew, would cover the smell of tobacco. Claude would spot it at once – and immediately be tempted to light one up himself. She couldn’t have that on her conscience. With the grandchildren round so often, well, it really wouldn’t do. Her daughter Laura – and her son-in-law, in particular – would not be pleased. They might limit the number of times the grandchildren visited, might even refuse to let them stay over. And Minette couldn’t bear the thought of losing those kids. Little Nicolas, little Natalie.

  Maybe it was the shopping, maybe it was the two Pineaux, but Minette felt a comfortable drowsiness settle on her as the clock struck two. She was ahead of herself, she decided; she could take a nap and still have everything under control by the time Claude returned home. Twenty minutes – half an hour would do it – with her feet up on the sofa. A cat nap.

  And that was what Minette Peluze did, opening the windows in the salon to pull the shutters closed so that the early afternoon sunshine slanted down in cool stripes onto the tiled floor, before settling herself on the sofa, making sure her new hairdo didn’t get too pressed out of shape.

  Somewhere a fly buzzed but she couldn’t be bothered to find it. The house creaked. A car drove past. A dog barked.

  Closing her eyes, she thought of her grandchildren, and that big hulking husband of hers beaming when he saw what was for supper. That look in his eye, cast in her direction. She knew what that look meant and the prospect warmed her.

  Maybe she slept, she couldn’t say. All she knew was that she was suddenly awake, her eyes wide open and a cushion pressing down against her face. She tried to twist and turn away from it, but the cushion and the hands that held it stayed in place, following her every movement. Her first thought, as she tried to straighten herself against the springs of the sofa and sit up, was that Claude was back earlier than expected, and kidding about. In which case this was no joke. He’d frightened her. And spoiled her hair. And she could feel her heart thumping.

  But she suddenly knew that it wasn’t Claude. As well as the hands on the cushion, someone now jumped astride her lower legs, hands locking her knees. There were two people here.

  She arched her hips, then lashed out with her arms and fists, flailing for something to fight against, finally finding the arms of whoever it was holding the cushion. They were long and strong, but bare and thin, and she knew they belonged to a woman. She latched on to them, a hand on each forearm, trying to tug them away, so she could breathe. But the arms were locked tight and couldn’t be moved. So then she scratched them with her nails, pinched the skin, tried to reach for the head that must be there somewhere above her.

  But she could find nothing, nothing more to grab hold of, and her breath, she suddenly realised, was nearly gone from all this panicking exertion. She needed to breathe, she needed to draw breath, but the inability to do so made her panic even more and she started screaming into the cushion, screaming and screaming until there was no breath left in her lungs and no new breath to take in, nothing to suck through the cushion, a tightness now settling on her chest and a muffling blackness creeping into her head.

  No more breath, no more breath, the tightness now easing, the blackness now softening into a deeper, darker blackness, her body beginning to tire and cease its useless resistance.

  She was going to die.

  She was dying.

  She simply couldn’t believe it.

  11

  ‘HE IS NOT A WELL man,’ said the senior nurse as she led Jacquot down a lino-covered corridor at the Institut Briand. She talked as she walked, glancing back over her shoulder, the lino tiles, shiny and sticky, squeaking beneath her rubber-soled trainers. ‘Such a terrible thing to happen.’ Her voice was soft and caring still, but her expression was hard and grim and unsurprised. She had seen too much.

  Jacquot nodded his agreement, taking it all in: a high corniced ceiling with neon strip lights, bars on the corridor windows, no pictures or furnishings, the doors on his right set with metal plates around the locks and sliding grilles at head-height. The air here was cool and still and smelt of polish.

  ‘Just through here,’ said the nurse, as they approached a set of double doors. She reached for the bunch of keys chained to her belt, rummaged through them and by the time they got to the doors, she had the right one in her hand and was fitting it into the lock. ‘He probably won’t look at you, and he may not say anything. Don’t be surprised. It’s the way he is, I’m afraid. Le pauvre.’ As far as the nurse was concerned, this had all the makings of a wasted journey for the policeman from Cavaillon.

  The Institut Briand was between Carpentras and Courthézon, a thirty kilometre drive from Cavaillon, in flat farmland south of the Montmirail cliffs. Jacquot had taken the autoroute, keeping to the inside lane except when slower-moving lorries forced him to overtake. The morning was bright and sharp and there was no hurry, his speed calculated to keep the draft from his open windows to a minimum, the sound of passing traffic muffled by a tape of classic favourites that had started with Brazilian jazz as he left Cavaillon and settled into banjo-plucking bluegrass as he turned off the autoroute, flashed his badge at the Péage toll and followed the signs for the Institut.

  It was the second week of May, the verges of the road were dry and dusty, and the cherry trees were in bloom – white, cream and pink squares scattered across the landscape. It was, Jacquot decided, a good time to be alive – a judgement hastily revised as he swung through the Institut Briand’s brick-pilla
red gates and, at the end of a cherry-lined drive, saw the Gothic brick façade: black bricks and red bricks, laid straight, herringboned, or patterned in square and diamond shapes. Put up at the end of the nineteenth century by a farmer who’d done well from his plums and apricots but had no eye for architecture, the building seemed narrower than it should be and its tall windows, corner turrets and steeply pitched slate roof gave it an odd perspective – as if it had been squeezed by giant hands. It was a brooding, unnerving structure. As Jacquot drew closer, a single cloud slid in front of the sun and a shadow raced down the drive towards him.

  Since Aix General Hospital was not equipped for the long-term psychiatric care that his physician considered appropriate, Noël Gilbert had been transferred to the Briand a couple of weeks earlier and, according to the nurse who had greeted Jacquot at reception and was showing him the way, he wasn’t likely to be leaving the institute any time soon. As well as being deemed a continuing suicide risk, Gilbert had suffered a sudden and severe breakdown, literally shutting himself down for hours at a time – eyes wide, mouth open, hunched forward. There was no response, no apparent awareness of anything around him, the nurse told Jacquot. As she babbled on, he wondered about patient confidentiality, finally deciding that, as a flic, he was probably considered comparable to the staff and consequently in the loop.

  ‘There he is,’ said the nurse, pushing open the doors and pointing across a small courtyard, more a large lightwell than a garden, a square of gravel framed by concrete paths. Sitting on a bench directly opposite the door, with another nurse close by, was Noël Gilbert, legs out in front of him, head back, staring at the small patch of blue sky four floors above him. He wore what looked like loose, striped pyjamas and a pair of rope-soled espadrilles.